Bowman Offshore Transfer / Page 3

This guide covers how you put your money into banks and institutions around the world and is a good primer to the world of offshore banking.

As a disclaimer, this is not financial advice, nor does this article instruct you in any way. It is simply information that you may take or leave. We are not responsible for any gains or losses, nor are we responsible for what you do with this information.

Note that with the recent Panama Papers revelation in 2016 that’s taken the world by storm, there’s a LOT more scrutiny on offshore banking and it’s very likely that banking regulations (especially in the EU and North America) will undergo changes to make it more difficult to ‘hide’ money.

There is a common misconception that having an offshore company means that you are doing something illegal. The truth is that having an offshore company can benefit your business in a number of very legal ways. If you are looking at offshore company formation, there are a number of tips that you need to know about. These tips will ensure that the offshore company formation process works for you.

Have a List of Questions

The first tip that you need to know about is to have a list of questions ready which are related to your business. These questions should include why an offshore company will work for your business. You should also consider who will be involved with the business and what your business exit strategy will be if something were to go wrong. Any question that you have about forming an offshore company should be put on the list and you need to have this with you when you visit an advisor.

If you are thinking of purchasing a property abroad and require a mortgage, there are a number of aspects that need to be taken into account.

There are also added advantages of utilizing the services of an independent bank – rather than one connected to the developer or selling agent - as they will check the legalities and carry out a valuation of the property, although they will not carry out a full in-depth survey unless requested.

A lender will also ensure the property is good security for the mortgage that you require and to check the property has not been overpriced.

However, when applying for a mortgage abroad there are many different underwriting obstacles you may come up against, according to Simon Conn, the UK’s leading overseas property professional and financial advisor (www.simonconn.com). Below are some common issues.

It's not too late to correct your U.S. tax filing compliance errors related to offshore holdings, but time is quickly running out. On March 13, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service announced that the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) started in March 2009 will finally come to a close on September 28, 2018. After that date, taxpayers with noncompliant foreign financial matters must resort to other programs, other traditional procedures and new procedures to be announced by the IRS for dealing with undisclosed offshore accounts and holdings.

This week marks Global Money Week, with schools and other institutions across the globe doing their part for financial education, including in the UK. This is particularly important as recent research has found that a significant percentage of English and Northern Irish adults are lacking financial skills.

Financial skills deficit

The scientific study, which looked at financial knowledge and skills across the world, found that a third of adults in England could not work out how much change they should receive (source: A. Bhutoria, J. Jerrim, A. Vignoles, 2018. The financial skills of adults across the world: New estimates from PIAAC). In other measures of financial knowledge, such as calculating the cost of goods according to a certain unit, English and Northern Irish adults also ended up scoring below average.

This is worrying news, and could explain why a separate study from financial education charity MyBnk sees 54% of parents call for schools to spend more time teaching

Under pressure to reduce operational costs, tech chiefs are increasingly taking advantage of cheaper offshore resources and labor arbitrage. There are also similar opportunities for back office processing that can be addressed by using service providers overseas.

But offshoring doesn’t always have a happy ending for a number of reasons. So what does it take to ensure your offshoring journey isn’t a painful, bumpy ride?

JOHANNESBURG — When it comes to moving your money offshore, there are several options. But each option needs to be considered seriously as it triggers off allowance and tax clearance rules. Missing a step could mean that you’d have to repatriate your funds back to South Africa and, at worse, possibly pay penalties. In this podcast, Esmerie Pienaar — a certified financial planner at Brenthurst Wealth Management — runs through several of the options and the rules thereof. It’s key advice for anybody looking to move money abroad. – Gareth van Zyl

If you are thinking of purchasing a property abroad and require a mortgage, there are a number of aspects that need to be taken into account.

There are also added advantages of utilizing the services of an independent bank – rather than one connected to the developer or selling agent - as they will check the legalities and carry out a valuation of the property, although they will not carry out a full in-depth survey unless requested.

A lender will also ensure the property is good security for the mortgage that you require and to check the property has not been overpriced.

However, when applying for a mortgage abroad there are many different underwriting obstacles you may come up against, according to Simon Conn, the UK’s leading overseas property professional and financial advisor (www.simonconn.com). Below are some common issues.

Offshore savings accounts allow you to save in different currencies. And, contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be hugely wealthy to take advantage of them.

Offshore savings accounts may have a high profile thanks to scandals involving famous names using them to avoid paying tax – but the reality is that account holders do still need to pay tax. In truth, there’s little point opening an offshore account in the hope of dodging tax because you are generally liable for tax on the interest you earn in the same way you would be in the UK.

However, there are a number of other benefits to holding an offshore savings account. Read on to find out if this could be the right savings account for you.

If you are a U.S. citizen or resident and maintain an undisclosed foreign bank account, beware. As numerous prosecutions trumpeted by the IRS make clear, the stakes have never been higher and the potential liabilities can be staggering. Why worry?

The vaunted secrecy of Swiss and other tax havens turns out not to be so secret after all. They've already named names to the IRS and more are on the way. Although the UBS case was most publicized, HSBC, Credit Suisse, and many other banks are in the mix now, as are many foreign countries besides Switzerland. So putting your head in the sand won't work in the long term.

The IRS had a special "Voluntary Disclosure Program" to bring violators into the fold, but the cutoff for participating in it was Oct. 15, 2009. If you are in that program, you are probably still slogging through filings and disclosures to the IRS. But if you missed that deadline--and many thousands did--beware. Sooner or later you'll have to address this problem one w